Week 31 -

Thanksgiving week and 7 months old! But not without a stop first at the Dr office for Brady's 3rd round of ear infections and 3rd type of antibiotics.  Unfortunately it hasn't seemed to help as the ear rubbing continues.  We go back to the doctor Monday for a checkup and to start discussing tubes (which Mom does not want to do).  He's also still pretty congested both in his sinuses and in his lungs, poor little guy.

This week Grandma Reggie, Jeff, and Uncle Erik were in town for Thanksgiving.  We ran/walked the Arlington Turkey Trot 5K with Erik running his first 5K at 26:29 and finishing 20th in his age group - congrats Uncle E!  After burning off some calories, we ate the second ever Seminara fried turkey and it was quite delicious.  Grandma Reggie was a huge help making all the sides - potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and carrots - the sound of it still makes us hungry!  And Mom made her first ever sweet potato casserole.  Brady sampled the feast, liking the potatoes and sweet potatoes but spitting out the turkey (he didn't seem to like the consistency).  Another morning he also tried bacon and unlike his Dad did not seem to like that either.  Indy was happy as Jeff took him for 3-4 walks/day in the gorgeous 60-70 deg weather.  Uncle E and Gary took advantage of the warm weather and put up the Christmas lights.  This year's decorations include the bushes and reindeer.

Brady loved all the company and attention.  He learned how to clap from his Uncle E and loved watching Grandma make sock monkey make faces and do flips.  He showed off his crawling skills going all over the living room and kitchen floors.  And he showed how strong he is doing "jumpies" in his exersaucer.  As his personality continues to develop, he has started making a scrunchie face (a half excited half smile) usually followed by his arms and legs going in excitement.  And he's developing his ability to chew, biting down and holding his spoon in his mouth sometimes not wanting to let go.  He's still in a "mommy phase" crying and reaching for Mommy when he sees her, but he can usually be distracted to settle down.  

By the end of the week, both Dad and Mom came down with stomach flu.  This wasn't exactly how they wanted to lose those extra pounds after Thanksgiving, but it did give them a chance to catch up on their Christmas movies and not spend money on black Friday.  Only 4 weeks until Christmas, wow.

Week 30 -

Getting stronger, more active, and more mobile.  Brady still loves water bottles, and according to friends on Facebook we must be raising Baby Superman since he can crush a plastic bottle with one hand!  This also makes it difficult to clear his nose or clip his nails when he resists.  He is definitely more active, constantly on the go checking things out or turning to look when he hears a noise.  And he's all over the place now on the floor crawling around object to object.  Mom lets him crawl around in the living room, seems backwards picking UP the dog toys and putting the baby toys on the FLOOR.  The pets seem to be getting used to him.  Indy sniffs him then walks away, Fenway holds her ground until he gets close and Mom moves Brady away, and Foxy can't really be bothered preferring to stay away at all times.  Brady loves watching Indy, we're sure they'll be BFFs someday.

Grandpa Bob and Grammie Terry left this week, but before they went Brady got to check out the RV.  Grandpa Bob let Brady play with the keys and wheel, next year they will have to take him for a ride.  The RV will stay with us in Texas for the winter, or least the next 2 months, before they come back down to get back on the road.  We also went to the Rainforest Cafe in Grapevine.  Brady liked watching the fish in the giant fish tanks and the gorillas and elephants move to the jungle music.  That's a great place for a kids birthday party. The family visits continue next week with Grandma Reggie, Jeff, and Uncle Erik in town for Thanksgiving and fried turkey.  Crazy the holidays are already here.

Brady had his first shoplift this week at a major superstore.  Somehow a toy he was playing with ended up tucked in the cart seat and we made away with it.  Hopefully we are not destined to a life of crime!

Brady is up to 2-3 solids a day now with meat and veggies or rice for dinner (blended of course).  This made for some quite solid poops this week too.  Can't believe he's growing up so fast, he will be 7 months old later this week.

We had a bit of "fall" weather this week with the temperatures at night dropping into the 30s.  Indy and Fenway took advantage of Indy's oversize pillow and were really cute cuddling up on it at night.  They each try to get as much room as possible and while Fenway has claws to her advantage, Indy's tail can be overpowering.  In the end they managed to share.

Week 29 -

This week was the presidential election with Barack Obama being re-elected to a second term over Governor Mitt Romney from Massachusetts.  Grandpa Bob and Grammie Terry made it to town in the RV logging 2600 miles from NH to TX. They were able to stick to their original travel plans since Uncle Erik took care of the tree on the roof in Maine. We were very fortune the tree did not puncture the roof or cause major structural damage.  And now we have more firewood for spring.

Report from daycare is Brady is all over the room.  He is much happier in tummy time now that he can move around, and boy is he fast.  He still half crawls/half drags himself around using his arms and right leg (left leg still just sticks out).  He's getting better at it too, holding objects while crawling, and crawling over things to get toys.  Best of all for Mom, he's so excited to see her when she picks him up that he crawls toward her when she enters the room.  Love this kid!  He's on a feeding schedule eating cereal and 1/2 jar of fruit in the morning, veggies in the afternoon, and 3-4 5oz bottles in between.  Unfortunately he picked up a little cold (oh daycare) with some congestion and a cough.

This week Brady started eating dinner at the table with his parents to start getting him used to having family meals.  And he started eating meat having chicken or turkey mixed with veggies or rice.  So far he likes just about everything he's eaten except banana plum brown rice (but that just sounds gross anyway).

He's getting better at sitting up and he can hold it longer, but still leaning forward on his hands for some extra support.  This week we toured Cowboys stadium and got him to sit on the star at the 50 yard line.  He's also getting more coordinated.  When Mommy takes him out of his car seat or high chair he leans forward to be picked up.  If you try to put him down he tries to cling on to you, but he's not strong enough (yet).  Speaking of high chair, it seems to be the new source of blow outs having two back to back this week.

We played some fun new games with Brady this week including sitting playing the keyboard and playing with his reflection in the mirror.  When he gets excited his arms and legs get going, and he still babbles and giggles a lot.  And he started sticking out his tongue, maybe he likes playing with his teeth?

One thing we noticed about Brady is he likes to wake up SLOW.  He doesn't like being woken up abruptly.  Mom had a hard time waking him up one morning, it was 8:15am and he wanted to snooze (check out the video).  He also likes to cuddle his Pats sock monkey in his crib, or watching his future BFF Indy.

Week 28 -

Losing track of the weeks now, had to check the blog to find out it's #28!  And for those trying to do the math in their heads, that's 6.5 months.

Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast this week just before Halloween bringing wind and rain and knocking out power. Dave and Nancy's house in NJ did ok, just lost a few trees and will be without power for ~1.5 weeks.  Unfortunately the big red pine along the shoreline in Maine blew inland falling on the house.  Bob and Terry are in Arkansas in the RV so are trying to get contractor help to remove the tree and assess the damage before any more storms hit the northeast.  This was a really huge tree so we are lucky it did not crush the camp.

Grandpa Dave and Grandma Nancy were in town the first half of the week.  We checked out Boo at the Zoo in Fort Worth which was actually a little disappointing - $3/person (including Brady) to go under a tent for candy and games, neither of which Brady can do.  The 3 and under "Tot Zone" was a bust too, basically it was just a play area to get kids to sign up for gymnastics.  Brady did get to meet a clown (and wasn't scared, in fact loved her bright yellow hair) and got one of those tiny palm-sized pumpkins.  We found a pumpkin patch in the regular zoo area which was much more fun.  Halloween night we took Brady around to say hi to the neighbors in his Angry Bird costume.  The ladies loved him giving him little bags of candy. By 7:30pm he was done and ready for bed.  He'll enjoy it more next year.

The second half of the week Mom and Brady were solo while Daddy was in Vegas for work.  Brady got out of school early Friday to go shopping with Mom at the farmer's market then down to the lake to see the ducks.  Friday night Brady got to meet Mom's friend Marguerite who was the first person Mommy told when she was pregnant.  Brady was funny too, he discovered he has volume and kept squealing REALLY loudly.

Brady continues to eat well but had too much fruit this week getting a diaper rash with a little blistering along his front diaper line (too acidic).  Switched him to veggies for a little while and it seems to be clearing up.  Poor guy, he didn't want to be in his jumper or execsaucer, it must have been painful!  Now that he's eating solids regularly and will be starting meats, we may need to give him more showers during the week (3x instead of 2x?).  We may try a bath again, hopefully he's grown out of hating them.

School pictures came back this week!  They did two poses - one sitting propped up and one close up.  The little guy had tears in his eyes in the close up.  Looking back, he was chomping on his fingers because his teeth broke through the next day (you can see the white bumps in the close up).

Brady is just so much fun - he likes to crawl around and play, babbling frequently.  Mom still makes up songs and rhymes and gets him to giggle.  He's also very ticklish.  Think he's going to like football because when it comes on TV he just get mesmerized.  And he seems to be going through a phase where only Mommy can calm him down when he's upset.  Sure he'll grow out of that soon.